The present invention relates to the field of transformation of matter and concerns a device for producing a plasma by a reaction involving combustion of a substance or a mixture of substances M, a process for ionisation or transformation of the substance employing this device, applications of the process according to the invention and embodiments employing the device according to the invention.
At present, thermal agitation is the only known process for constructing a combustion reaction. This process involves intimately mixing the fuel with the oxygen carrier and agitating the mixture using a thermodynamic stress, in other words increasing the entropy or the disorder of this mixture in order to increase the probability of effective meeting of the reacted entities. Solid fuels are themselves then subjected to the turbulent stream of the oxygen-carrying air.
The field of pulsatory combustion would tend to proceed differently within a steady stream. However, this case, which defies conventional description, operates perfectly only at low frequencies of the pulsating stream compatible with the undulating rate of propagation of the flame front. Beyond this, the turbulence due to the entropy-generating higher frequencies destroy the coherence between the thermal procedure and the steady system, the yields falling rapidly to the point where the flame decays.
Owing to the incoherence due to thermal agitation, the probability of meetings between particles is slight and not all collisions are effective. Of the meetings, those which are actually effective have a slight range of movement which leads only to instantaneous ionisation followed by oxidation which reforms associated chemical species. This type of reaction creates unburnt residues and oxides which are increasingly harmful to the earth's atmosphere.
Under these conditions, the production of energy by combustion involves making a choice between the production of quantities of unburnt residues or the disposal of harmful oxidation products.
The static devices subjected to the pulsations of the smoke ducts which lead to reduction in frequency by beating in the combustion chambers produce a large amount of unburnt residues. It is therefore common for the smoke duct to block in three weeks of use.
The power couple of heat engines of which the output is low in relation to the energy capacity of the fuels decreases rapidly when the mechanical speed exceeds a certain threshold of correlation with the reaction rate characterised by the propagation of the flame front. It is therefore necessary to use fuels having improved kinetic velocities, but this increases the production of nitrogen oxides in proportion with the combustion temperature.
This range of validity is even smaller in burners in which adjustments are very sharp, on the one hand to stabilise the flames and, on the other hand, to select the best yield in view of the dilemma between the production of unburnt residues and the disposal of oxidation products. An equilibrium is therefore required between limiting unburnt residues and limiting the production of oxides, which are all just as harmful as one another and have known consequences.
The problem becomes even more complex in industrial installations. In fact, it is difficult to control the turbulent evolution of a large-volume flame, particularly when using several injectors simultaneously. The great difference in temperature between the core (or inner cone) and the periphery of a large volume flame tends to reduce the quality of combustion and the peripheral exchange of heat. For these reasons, a plurality of burners are used in industrial furnaces. In this case, the volume becomes the limiting factor.
The problem encountered in the present invention is a result of the actual thermal agitation procedure which maintains the incoherence of the reaction medium to an even greater extent, the further the thermodynamic conditions are from the standard state. Therefore, the ruptures of fuel molecules and their behaviour as free particles is completely random. The flame front is the only coherence fringe in the agitated reaction medium. Its propagation in a Brownian medium assumes there is a coherence organising movement preceding it and a decoherence movement following it, both of which generate turbulence which represents lost movement energy.
Depending on their nature, conventional fuels have an average rate of propagation of this undulating coherence space which is associated with a range or extent of compatibility with the frequencies of pulsatory phenomena developed by the reactors. Outside this range of harmonic correspondence, there is destructive interference between the two capacities. Thus, a lower frequency produces unburnt residues and a mediocre yield. Conversely, an excess of pressure in the stream in the burners causes the flame to decay and become unstable. In engines, a high speed therefore leads to knocking, the substance evolving locally, independently of the system.
The heart of the problem lies in the span of the coherence margin between the inherent vibratory properties of the reacted substance and the pulsating and turbulent phenomena developed independently by the reactors. The ideal solution lies in the production of a reactor having coherent, constant, maintained and well controlled pulsatory properties, in full harmony or harmonic with the organised and coherent vibratory behaviour of the substance during the continuity of its transformation, and mainly in the meeting of the reagents.
It is also known that, in a steady stream, the acoustic conditions impose coherence of state and direction on the moving particles. In a nodal region, therefore, the substance is immobile whereas, in the regions containing “bellies”, the amplitudes are at a peak and are therefore the same for all points in the vicinity. On the other hand, the oscillating movements of all these points are synchronous and the spacing of these points remains substantially invariable. It is also known from experience that a microscopic steady stream in a pipe conveys the microscopic condition of acoustic pressure (cf. all musical wind instruments).